AUF DER HÖHE, ‘On the Heights’
(1865) reflects a period of constitutional
political
conflict in Germany, and is the most
widely known of Auerbach's novels. The
central figure is a king whose self-confident
individuality comes in conflict with his love of
popular freedom. Anticipating the ‘superman’
of later writers, he feels that his nature is cast
in too large a mold to be confined by
constitutional restraints or ethical conventions. In
conflict with a majority of the elected
representatives of the people over some ecclesiastical
question, he dissolves the assembly in his
impatience of any outer control. The same
characteristics are manifesting themselves meantime
in his domestic life. His queen is a gentle
lady of domestic instincts. He loves her, yet
finds in the forceful, energetic Countess Irma,
one of her ladies in waiting, a spirit so answering
to his own that they join to transgress, he
the bond of marriage, she of loyalty to her
queen. Atonement comes first to Irma, who
withdraws from the court into solitude, recognizing
that one who would live a life of nature
may not claim the protection of the social
order. Thus the king is brought to realize that
life for its full unfolding depends not only on
following the law of nature or the law of custom,
but in the co-ordination of them, when
man of his own free will yields obedience to
law. He dismisses his autocratic counsellors
and bows to the will of his people. The stress
of this psychic drama is relieved by scenes
between the queen and Wallpurga, the little
prince's peasant nurse, who passes, as does her
husband, through a conflict parallel to that of
Irma and the king, though both are saved from
straying by their unsophistocated respect for
the folk-ways. The contrast between court and
peasant life is a primary interest in ‘On the
Heights.’ There are translations by S. A.
Stern and others.